Indecision at the Crossroads - Biomedical Engineering

Buflea
Thu, 15 Feb 2024 22:37:46 +0000

MidwestPack:

First, congratulations to your daughter and your son. What great options your daughter has earned through her hard work!

Following up on ColdWombat’s comment - and I understand that it is not exactly the question that you ask - considering a broader engineering discipline may be beneficial. I was a nuclear engineering student. The education was great and it opened many options for me, however, very few in what one would identify at first glance as nuclear engineering. That degree program is often housed within broader disciplines (e.g., within a ChemE or MechE program) at some schools, but was standalone at my school. When applying for positions, the nuke degree pigeonholed me to my detriment at many employers. Rather, had I been a ChemE, MechE, or ElectricalE, I would have retained many, many opportunities within the core nuclear channel, but would have had ready access to many additional opportunities.

Further, if one decides to do ChemE or MechE, they can always take a few BioE electives to make them more appealable to companies seeking BioEs.

Regardless, well done to your daughter.

I already spoke with my D and she said she will decide after first year in engineering. She seems more flexible than my son who wanted aerospace and nobody could make him go to a broader major such mechanical engineering.
Her concern is she likes more Biology than Chemistry and is afraid if she will pick Chemical Engineering will completely loose the biology aspect of the degree …
Anyway - that’s for later to decide - meantime she received $16k merit from Ohio. But Ohio is overall more expensive and not so prestigious as Purdue. So the short list remain: UVA, GT and Ohio.
No merit and no aid from Rutgers and only $8k merit from NJIT - all being in state schools - disappointing.